Tag Archives: computer

I’m sure that I’m not the only one that has more than one computer at his desk. However, I doubt very much that many people have multiple computers inside a single case (I know I don’t). Well the people at DFI have created a new motherboard which allows for two completely different systems to be ran off of it. The above video goes into greater detail, but essentially you have a P45 chipset running a socket 775 CPU, and an Atom-based configuration on the board. There are shared ports between the two, and you’ll be able to transfer files back-and-forth.

This new board is going to set you back around $399 when it hits the market in October or November of this year. The price really makes me wonder how many people are going to find many real applications for this. Personally, I’d rather have two different motherboards inside two different cases. It would be cheaper, you’d eliminate the single point of failure between two computers, and you could use both at the same time.

Remember that spiffy Eee Keyboard that Asus announced back at CES? Well we’ve finally gotten a confirmation on a release. It seems that it will be shipping next month, for between $400-$500. In case you’ve forgotten, you’ll get an Atom-powered computer packed inside a keyboard with a 5-inch touchscreen and wireless HDMI. How awesome is that going to be?

When most people walk into my office, the first thing they notice is that I have a lot of monitors at my desk. Two of them are for my Mac, and two for my PC. However, I’ve always thought it would be cool to have more. I’m sure you’ve all seen movies where some hacker has six ore more monitors arranged in a nice rectangle. That’s exactly what I want, and it seems that with AMD’s new DirectX11 cards, I’ll be able to do this.

Now I’m sure you’ll point out that I can hook up plenty of monitors to my Windows machine just fine. That’s true, I’ve had up to four connected at once, but it does not provide the desired effect. When I launch a game, it still only plays on a single window. However, with AMD’s Eyefinity tool, Windows will think that all of the connected monitors (up to 6) are really just one large display.

That’s right, you can have six monitors arranged in a rectangle, and when you fire up your favorite game, it will show up on all six. Of course you’ll probably have some fun in getting the game to work at the proper resolution, depending on the title. The bezels will also be a little annoying, but AMD is working with Samsung to create monitors with extra-thin bezels for this sort of purpose.

I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these cards and try this out myself. Unfortunately it sounds like you’ll need to have at least one monitor hooked up using a DisplayPort, meaning you can’t just go grab a bunch of old 17-inch monitors and go to town. Still, count me in.

Have you been pining over that USB 3.0-equipped Asus motherboard that we showed you last week? Sure, there aren’t any peripherals that actually take advantage of the new standard, but at least you’d be prepared. At the time Asus hadn’t provided us with any pricing or availability on the board, however, now we know exactly when this baby will be shipping. That would be never.

Apparently Asus has decided to scrap the board, without really giving any reason. The only thing they mentioned was that they were working on other things. I guess maybe it is a little early to get excited about USB 3.0, but you can’t use peripherals without ports. Then again, what good are ports without peripherals? Now we’re back to the old chicken and the egg thing.

Most average computer users don’t worry too much about how hot their computer gets. That’s because they aren’t pushing their machines to their limits. Gamers on the other hand, well we tend to squeeze every drop of performance we can out of each and every part. This means keeping a careful eye on the temperature, so as not to burn up our precious parts. NZXT has provided a nice piece of hardware called the Sentry, which not only displays the temperatures of up to 5 different areas of your computer, but also allows you to control the speeds of 5 fans to compensate. Today they announced the Sentry 2, which improves upon the original design.

The new Sentry 2 has the same basic features of the original, but this time around simplifies things by integrating a touchscreen. This should make adjusting fan speeds and checking temperatures a little easier. It’s also smaller, taking up only a single 5.25” bay, as opposed to two. One of the best changes comes to the price, which will be only $30 when it goes on sale later this month.

When it comes to laptops, there are only two things that you can really do to upgrade your hardware. That would be adding RAM and swapping out your hard drive. With the latest round of MacBook Pros, there have been some issues finding compatible RAM that isn’t direct from Apple (which is always on the expensive side). Luckily OCZ has your back on both RAM and a new hard drive for your Mac.

This week OCZ announced two new lines of RAM, and a new SSD specifically aimed at Mac users. First their “Qualified for Mac” RAM comes in DDR2 and DDR3 flavors. The DDR2 is 667MHZ PC2-5400 with a CL of 5-5-5-15. These can be found in single 2GB sticks either alone, or packaged in a pair. As for the DDR3 sticks, these are 8500 MHZ PC3-1066 with a CL of 7-7-7-20. They can also be found in single 2GB sticks, or in pairs.

OCZ also announced their new Vertex Seris Mac Edition SATA II 2.5-inch SSD. The drives boast sequential read/write speeds of 240MB/s and 170MB/s respectively, and 64MB of onboard cache. Not only will these boost the speed of your activities, but increase your battery life as well. The new Vertex SDD’s will come in 30, 60, 120 and 250GB capacities. No word on pricing or availability of these newly announced products.

Was the Zypad WR110 not quite feminine enough for your cyclopean curves and purple hair? Here’s a wrist computer that could enhance both your productivity and your mojo. The Ridgeline W200 from Glacier Computer is a wrist wearable computer does the trick, with sleek arm-hugging curves and a magnesium alloy case that’s a comfortable 10 ounces.

Now, I have to say, this thing looks an awful lot like the the Zypad WL1000 from back in 2006. Like, an awful lot. But at least it’s got mostly up to date specs, with a 3.5″ color touchscreen, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and various wired interfaces, running either Linux or Windows CE. As you might expect from its sporty and rugged form factor, the W200 is designed for people who want to get lost in the middle of nowhere without actually getting lost in the middle of nowhere. The batteries are hot swappable so that you’ll never lose your position, and the computer uses tilt sensors to tell if you’re actually looking at it, and if not, it powers down to idle.

I could see myself using one of these, for sure. Not because it’s in any way practical or anything… No, just so that people can see me using it and say, “wow, that guy has a wrist computer, he must be awesome.”

It seems like PC gamers are always looking for that next hot piece of hardware (I’d know, I’m one of them), be it a new graphics card, CPU or even a whole new PC. Of course you don’t actually want something that is physically hot, since that generally leads to some major issues. Sometimes it makes a chip fail, other times it makes your freaking case melt. Never heard of a computer that got so hot that it actually started to melt the case? Let me introduce you to the Acer Predator.

Yesterday Acer issued a voluntary recall of around 215 Predator gaming PCs. Apparently some of the internal wiring insulation can become stripped and cause the wires to overheat. According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website it can result in melted internal components and external casing. So far there have only been two reports of this occurring and no injuries.

I’ve been an avid Mac user since my dad purchased our first one back in the early 90’s. There was a period of a few years where my house was strictly PC-based. This wasn’t because I had a change of heart, but rather due to the fact that I’m a gamer, and Macs are very pricey. If you want to pick up a Mac for under a grand, you’ll have to either go with a Mac Mini, or the low-end Macbook. Either way you choose, you’re still not going to get the same amount of power as you would with a comparably priced PC.

Another option, of course is to make your own Hackintosh, which (and I speak from experience) can be a bit of a pain to initially setup. The result is a machine that runs OSX (just as well as any machine from Apple), and is more cost-effective than a real Mac. One other choice is to order a computer from Psystar. Yes, I’m talking about the company that still has an ongoing lawsuit with Apple. They’re back in the news with their third OSX-enabled offering dubbed the Open(3).

OhGizmo! is a frequently updated blog that focuses on covering items that will appeal to a very specific and often very passionate audience: the geek. Aside from the fare of innovative consumer electronic products, the reader can expect to find news about geek culture, absurd inventions, awe inspiring technology, and an ever growing assortment of articles that we like to think fit within our view of what we’re calling the Geek Lifestyle.